To enjoy any walk first you must be able to get to the start and secondly design a route to suit the parameters of the walk you wish to do. Shortwalker reconned 4+ miles as his short walk, this is a little energetic for the official idea of the walk the public want.
I enjoy designing walks, I take pleasure in seeing the delight on my walk partners face and in her actions when we are somewhere that has hit the right spots. To achieve these ends it is necessary to employ certain strategies.
Strategies that should be talked about and if they were, perhaps messages might get through to townhall. In praise of shortwalks, I wonder if how many ask themselves how much Quality Way is it possible to pack into a short distance. In the early days of Covid it was interesting to see how the rank and file of non walkers, forced to take exercise, took to the Edgelands of the town and ignoring the privacy signs. This revealed extensive paths of high quality of way, far superior to the Rights of way that accessed them, they now lose their definition as as the footfall has lessened. No damage to crops, though the routes followed a natural lie of the land, the network created, though extensive, had minimal encroachment on the land. The only failing in this random development was one step further, safe main road crossings, these could have been seen with a little map study.
My afterthought about running was probably triggered by seeing the regular tracks of a mother and son, who used the margin of one particular field as a running track on a regular training course.
My supposed agenda, perhaps due to genetic instinct, I come from a long line of tenant farmers, a broad streak of distrust for the institutions of landownership, would be to encourage the wider discussions of the limitations of our access agenda so that those bodies like the Great Outdoors Liaison Groups, reflect the true wants and needs of the all who walk in our countryside. Perhaps some younger than I will pick up the baton aided by my irreverent thoughts.
Finally, in many areas, a decent circular short walk is easier to find than a decent long walk as the enclosed area is much less. In our case, it has led us into exploring many areas we would not have considered before and finding lots of hidden gems as a result.
And perhaps the specifics of the gems referred to by the OP might start to appear on the questionnaires local gov.com send out to formulate their policies.